Monday, October 12, 2009

Feeling Better

Thankfully David is feeling better today. Cold symptoms remain, but he is definitely more perky.

David's friend is Lena; she is one of our barn cats. We think it was about a month ago when Lena birthed two kittens. This is her first time being a mama, and she definitely didn't know what she was doing. She used to haul her kittens all over the place, and I can't remember how many times the boys had to take them out of the pick-up truck (there are so many holes in the body of the truck that almost anything could crawl in there!).

We knew for certain that one of her kittens had died, and since we hadn't seen the other one around we thought it had died as well. The boys were very surprised the day the snow came, as when they tried to move the truck they discovered a kitten underneath. We knew Funny Face had her kittens, but this one was too large to be one of hers. So, it had to be Lena's. (If you look hard you will see the little black kitten by Lena.)

Jonathan brought the kitten inside since Lena was nowhere to be found. Poor thing, he was wet and shivering. We warmed him up and waited for Lena to show up.

Lena seemed thankful to find her baby, and nursed him right away. We allowed her to stay in a box with the kitten for the night. But now we had a problem.

This barn cat liked a nice warm house, with plenty of available food that wasn't up for grabs with the other cats. I caught her on the kitchen table, and promptly threw her out. We tried teaching the kitten how to drink goat milk from a saucer, but he is too young, so we had to bring Lena back in. It's a mistake to try to teach manners to a barn cat!

I know this is a lot of hoopla for a barn kitty, but we all have soft spots for cats. We have resorted to letting Lena in, give her something to eat, and then she will settle down and allow the kitten to nurse. When the kitten is satisfied we put Lena outside. We may just try to feed the kitten with an eye dropper, but so far the arrangement is working well. We may be in for trouble when the kitten decides he loves it too much in the house to even consider going outside. We'll try to find a home for him when he is old enough.

3 comments:

If your boy has the same head cold I got, well... it takes a few weeks to get over the stuffy head symptoms, otherwise I felt better within 24 hours.

I agree with Kimberly, cats have a mind of their own, even house cats! We broke our cat from getting up on the table and countertop but setting mousetraps upside down( it's tricky to do, but didn't want her to get hurt, only frighten her.) It worked after two attemps on her part and she( to our knowledge) has never tried again. A squirt bottle of water seemed to work well too, just it tends to make a mess.

Take care and keep warm, I warned you it was coming*wink*Blessings from,The Never Done Farm

Hi Kimberly,I should have commented on your blog; when I saw the tortilla recipe posted I printed it out. Can't wait to try it -- thanks so much!

Hi Kelle,David is feeling better, thanks. The older boys have had this thing for over a week and still are coughing and have lots of sinus congestion. I certainly hope it doesn't last as long as you had to put up with it.

Thanks for the advice regarding Lena. She has been pretty compliant today, but we have had her outside as well. The kitten (now affectionately named Henry) has gotten the run of the house and is quite friendly. I'm afraid no one will want to part with him!

Please keep those heads up warnings coming about our weather, it helps when we can brace ourselves!